Food Policy Council tells Mendocino County supervisors: Local is better

County hears update on food industry goals

The Food Policy Council, advising Mendocino County, is pushing the Board of Supervisors to adopt a local food policy. In line with the council’s message of self-sufficiency, it has asked the board to require at least 10 percent of the food purchased for county-sponsored events and meetings to be local.

“We want to make sure that we’re doing a better job creating and keeping some of the things that we produce, namely food,” said Tarney Sheldon, a member of the Food Policy Council.

A presentation to the board Tuesday outlined a few of the council’s goals for the remainder of 2017 and called out a few successful initiatives already done to further those goals, with an emphasis on keeping food production and purchases inside county lines.

The presentation quoted a food economist, Ken Meter with Crossroads Resource Center in Minnesota: “If Mendocino County consumers purchased only 15 percent of the food they need for home use directly from county farmers, this would produce $20 million of new farm income in Mendocino County.”

One big pull for local produce are the county’s certified farmers markets, working with the CalFresh program for low-income individuals to add healthy food to their grocery list. All Mendocino County farmers markets accept food stamps, or Electronic Benefits Transfer (known as EBT), which the county’s Health and Human Services Agency is seeking to promote more widely, in a separate effort.

The Food Policy Council reported the EBT match program brought more than 166 new shoppers to the Ukiah farmers market in 2016 and made up 10 percent of the total market income for that year, a boost for local farmers.

Despite what some may think, with EBT, everyone wins, said Sheldon.

“Some people are reticent to use CalFresh because they think that’s taking from the community, but it’s actually really contributing,” she said. “If their family needs it and qualifies, they can have a way of really contributing by going and visiting the farmers market and buying good food.”

The council’s top priorities this year are to secure land for small- to mid-scale food production and to implement wellness policies for schools, nonprofits and other agencies. It is also interested in farmworker justice issues, such as affordable housing and access to land for them to grow their own food.

The county’s cannabis rules were pulled into the realm of consideration, Sheldon advising the board to make sure it gives proper attention to produce growers and not put “undue restrictions on them or economic burden.”

That point was echoed by Casey O’Neill, farmer of both produce and cannabis and county chairman for the California Growers Association.

“There’s some scary potentials, you know, this whole talk of greenhouse permits...and commercial permits...as a food producer, it’s a nonstarter. It’s absolutely out of the question,” he said of the county’s Cannabis Cultivation Program.

With the request for a county food policy, the council hopes to funnel money already being spent back into the pockets of residents who make a living on Mendocino County soil.

“That would go a long way to supporting our local economy and really strengthening our local food system,” Sheldon said.

Shoppers looking to support Mendocino County farming can buy items with the Grown Local brand sticker in certain stores, including Surf Market in Gualala, Ukiah Natural Foods Co-op and Mariposa Market in Willits.